Erik(a) - The Man who became Women's World Downhill Champion

Erik(a) - Der Mann, der Weltmeisterin wurde

Raised as a girl in a small town in the Austrian Alps and celebrated as the Women's Downhill Champion in Portillo, Chile in 1966, Erika Schinegger's career comes to an abrupt halt just before the Winter Olympics of 1967. The results of a newly instituted gender check cause an international sensation by pronouncing her a biological man. Disregarding the vehement disapproval of her family and the National Ski Federation, Erika elects to undergo gender completion surgery and assume what she feels to be her true identity. After the operation at 20 years of age, Erik begins learning to be a man. Seven years later, he is happily married and the father of a daughter, Claire. The film tells of the narrowness that plays out behind the scenes of peak performance sports like the women's downhill - and the uphill battle of one person, who found the way to himself, in spite of it.